Bill Yao of Mk II Watches spends his time assembling, maintaining standards and testing the small runs of timepieces he produces from his company’s Pennsylvania workshop. He spends 8 hours or more on each watch, about 5 of which are devoted to quality control measures. Each angle is considered, flattened and beveled with intent. Dials are beautifully painted. Every detail and material is chosen with care. Yao is utterly uncompromising, and the results are superlative.
When a man cares that much about the watches he makes, you can be assured he wants you to take care of yours. While taking a look at Bill’s process, he offered three surprising tips for taking care of that nice watch of yours:
1. Watches and Laptops/Tablets Don’t Mix
Leaving a watch sitting on your laptop or tablet overnight exposes it to destructive electromagnetic influences that can seriously hurt its timing and accuracy. In fact, it’s a leading cause of repairs.
2. Skip the Expensive Winder
That $300 winder might not be such a good investment. If your alternative to wearing a watch is keeping it on a winder, you’re just exposing it to continuous wear and tear. That means more servicing and more repairs.
3. Be Careful Around the Shower
While Yao’s own Mk II has survived tours of Afghanistan and motorcycle trips (and motorcycle crashes), he’s seen tons of guys break a watch in just one drop on ceramic tile, generally while taking it off before a shower.
